Makwetu said the company's liabilities exceeded its assets by R17.8bn at the end of the financial year.

South African Airways CEO Vuyani Jarana is still new to his position.

He says the results indicate a major challenge, he believes the company can be turned around.

Not surprised, because these results are for the 27 March 2017 financial year.

— Vuyani Jarana, South African Airways CEO

What the board has done on this is to welcome the results from the auditor general because they also help us as part of the build process for SAA.

— Vuyani Jarana, South African Airways CEO

When I came in I knew it was a loss making business but of course unless you get closer to understand the sense of the numbers and the level of the challenge, you would not know but what we have seen in terms of the results it does indicate a significant amount of challenge .

— Vuyani Jarana, South African Airways CEO

Based on the strategy that we have in terms of the turnaround, I still believe it is a job that is doable to turn it around from market point of view. What you will see is that the airline had flat growth in revenues but had costs increasing significantly.

— Vuyani Jarana, South African Airways CEO

Click on the link below to hear more from Jarana and how he plans to fix SAA's financial woes...